Credits in your published app: who pays for AI usage

If your live app has AI features, your visitors using them spends YOUR credits — once per action. Here's how it works and how to control it.

Short version: if you publish an app with AI features, you — the owner — pay for them. Every time one of your app's visitors uses an AI feature you built in, it uses credits from your OverSkill balance. Not theirs. Yours.

This trips people up, so here's exactly how it works.

What counts as AI in your app

We mean AI features that run for your visitors while they use your live app — not the AI you use in the editor to build it. For example:

• A chatbot or AI assistant on your site
• Generate buttons (write a summary, draft a reply, suggest ideas)
• Image generation your users trigger
• Text or audio generation powered by OverSkill

If your app does any of that, those features keep running — and keep using credits — for as long as your app is live and people are using it.

Who gets charged

You do. The credits come out of the balance on the team that owns the app. It doesn't matter who the visitor is or whether they have an OverSkill account — the AI work is billed back to you, the creator.

Think of it like hosting: your visitors don't pay your bill, you do. The upside is your users get a smooth experience with nothing to sign up for; the responsibility is that you're covering the AI cost on their behalf.

How often you're charged

Per action, not per visit. Each individual AI request your app makes — one chatbot reply, one generated image, one summary — uses credits on its own. Ten visitors each generating five images is fifty charges, not one. A longer or more complex request uses more credits than a short one, the same way building does.

What this means before you launch

If your app has AI features that visitors will use, plan for it:

• Estimate the volume. Roughly how many AI actions will your users take per month? Multiply that out.
• Watch your balance after launch, not just while building. Usage continues in the background as people use your live app.
• Keep enough headroom (or a credit pack on hand) so a burst of traffic doesn't run you dry mid-month.

How to avoid using your credits: connect your own AI account

If you'd rather not have your app's AI usage come out of your OverSkill credits, you can connect your own outside AI account to power those features instead. When you do, that usage is billed directly to that account — not your OverSkill balance.

This is more of an advanced setup: you add your own provider key in your app's settings, and your app uses it for those AI calls. It's the right move if you already have an AI account, expect heavy usage, or want billing to land somewhere other than OverSkill. If you're not sure how to set that up, our team can point you in the right direction.

Note: the default — and the simplest — path is to let OverSkill handle the AI and bill your credits. The bring your own account route is optional, for owners who specifically want it.

What to read next

• What are credits? — how the meter works overall
• Out of credits — what now? — your options when the balance hits zero
• Credit packs vs subscriptions — the cheapest way to keep usage covered